I stumbled across the MGS2 soundtrack on Amazon, where the price is $7.16.  Normally I would attribute such a low price to piracy, but this item is sold by Amazon, not a third-party merchant.  Most Japanese game soundtracks that Amazon stocks are obscenely marked up (e.g.), so I wondered whether there had been a U.S. release.

According to this page, there was.  What other Japanese game soundtracks were released in the U.S.?  This Google search returns only a handful of relevant results.  Are there others, not including soundtracks bundled with their respective games (e.g., Silent Hill 3, Lunar)?

Streets of Rage 2, GrimGrimoire, Super Mario 64, and all the Tokyo Pop releases (search "tokyopop" under Publisher contains here) come to mind.

-Mike

I know Sumthing Else has a handful of Japanese soundtracks in their catalogue like a Resident Evil 10th Anniversary compilation, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike (inherited from Mars Colony?), Ninety-Nine Nights, and most recently, Blue Dragon.  Can't seem to think of any other American releases of Japanese game soundtracks offhand other than Nintendo Power versions and the usual samplers/promo soundtracks that are used a presell bonuses.  Surely there are more we're forgetting?

Square sold the original soundtracks to Final Fantasy VI and Seiken Densetsu 2 domestically via mail order, under the same NTT Publishing label. I seem to recall Square USA selling soundtracks on their website for a brief peiod, but I don't know if they were identical to their Japanese counterparts music-wise.

FFVIII was sold on the website too. They eventually had so much overstock they gave em out for free...not sure what the circumstances were but I got a copy (and it's still sealed. Wonder if it's worth anything now?)

Oh, wow. I guess FFVIII had a domestic release that was identical in material to the Japanese press, with the only difference being cover art and booklet contents.

I'd love to find this. Shame they didn't do it for other FF soundtracks.

http://www.rpgfan.com/soundtracks/ff8music/index.html

Edit: TerraEpon beat me to it. Shucks, mang.

Continuing the Nintendo theme, there were a whole bunch of NA and EU domestic releases during the Nintendo 64 era. See here. Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Ocarina of Time, Star Fox 64, Paper Mario, and Yoshi's Story are the ones. For some of them, there were three or four releases.

Also, most Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill albums have received European releases.

I was doing a little research on Resident Evil yesterday and was reminded that quite a few RE soundtracks were released here in the U.S. by various publishers (Viz, Mars Colony, Tokyopop, and Sumthing Else):

Resident Evil 2 Original Soundtrack (U.S. printing of CPCA-1001)

Resident Evil 3 Nemesis Original Soundtrack (U.S. printing of CPCA-1032~3)

Resident Evil Code: Veronica X Official Soundtrack

Resident Evil Original Soundtrack Remix (U.S. printing of TYCY-5511)

Resident Evil: Orchestra Album (U.S. printing of CPCA-1034)

Ten Years of Resident Evil - The Official Soundtrack

-Mike

A soundtrack that I recently bought was released by TokyoPop which I am very grateful for.

http://www.vgmdb.net/db/albums.php?id=1036

I just love the music in Panzer Dragoon games and the tracks in Orta are excellent!